Experiencer

When I was four years old, I received one of the greatest gifts of my life. It was a Paddington Bear doll, nearly the same size as me, dressed in his little jacket and hat. I found Paddington to be too complicated a name and mentally linked Paddington to Washington, so I called him George. Made perfect sense to me.

George and I quickly became inseparable. I spent every possible moment with him. My mom would hear us from down the hall, my voice rising and falling in a steady stream of conversation, a one-sided dialogue that, to me, was never really one-sided. His voice lived in my head as clearly as any friend’s. She would hear me singing to him, laughing with him, pausing as if to listen to something only I could hear. To me, George was as real as anyone.

He was not strictly a boy though. I dressed George up in dresses all the time and called them Georgette. He was always very fluid, never confined to one gender.

George was my protector. With him I felt so safe. I still do. He is still with me 48 years later.

I wonder how many experiencers had imaginary friends in their childhood. I wonder if our inner dialogues would be better utilized if they were framed as imaginary friends. The truth is, we have so little understanding of how consciousness, imagination, or internal dialogue works, so all of this is possible.

Now here is when things get weird. You may remember that my mom forbade my brother and me to use Ouija boards and that she had a good reason. Well, here is the story.

Shortly after I had adopted George as my imaginary friend, my mom was with a group of friends, doing what women do, which is usually getting witchy in some capacity. I say “witchy” because I have the same inclinations.

They decided to play with a Ouija board, all laying their hands together on the planchette, the heart-shaped pointer with a hole in the center. Initially, they were enjoying themselves and asking questions until a very different energy entered the room and started frenetically spelling. The women were shocked at the change of pace and energy and asked questions. Instead of answers, the pointer began moving on its own with intense energy. It began selecting intimate facts to share with each woman, things that the other women did not know.

The pointer then brought up my mother’s late father and gave details of how he was doing on the other side. At this point, my mom was totally freaked out.

At some point, it kept spelling out help help help, fire fire fire. The women asked how they could help.

Then, through the Ouija messages, they learned that the spirit coming through was named George. he told them he was the son of my mother’s in a past life, and I was the other parent. George was our son. He told them he had died in a fire.

None of these other women knew of my stuffed animal or imaginary friends for that matter. But my mom did, and she knew how fiercely I loved that bear.

I’m not sure what he thought those women could do for him at that Ouija Board but he certainly gave them an experience none of them would be able to forget.

The women were up all night with the Ouija board, held captive by the strong energy dazzling them. I’m not sure how the session ended, but afterward my mom was clear: none of her children would ever touch a Ouija board.

She would say, “Imagine a knock at the door at midnight. Playing with a Ouija board is like opening it without looking through the peephole or asking who is there. You are letting anyone in without checking to see if they are safe.” She warned that calling on any random energy just because it happens to be present is not only reckless, it is dangerous.

She also made sure my brother and I knew that if a Ouija board ever came out at a party, we could call her, no matter the hour, and she would come pick us up. She didn’t want us in the same house as anyone playing with spirits.

I see her wisdom now every time I hear about CE-5 protocols or people trying to summon UAP. There are plenty of groups out there who try to summon orbs and they appear. Yes, it can be done, but does that mean you should do it?

This chapter belongs in my intuition story because it reminds me that my mother gave me a foundation for navigating the unseen.

She opened the doorway to the unseen, teaching me that energy listens, that intention matters, and that magic should never be careless. She wanted us to grow up curious but safe, to know how to care for our own energy. Maybe she just wanted us to have the boundaries she never had as a child with the great unknown.